


breaking the first rule

by rileyhart



Series: I Love You. So Much. [6]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, these dorks are in so deep and have been for so long and they don't even know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-09-25 19:05:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9839942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rileyhart/pseuds/rileyhart
Summary: When did Jake Peralta fall in love with Amy Santiago? And when did she fall in love with him?





	1. Prologue

"Oh, and there is one more rule," Jake added mock seriously, standing in front of her in his ridiculous tux and shorts combo, "no matter what happens, you're not allowed to fall in love with me,"

Amy resisted rolling her eyes. "Won't be a problem," she told him, exasperatedly, but with a smile all the same.

"Well in that case, milady," Jake opened the passenger car door for her, and offered her his hand, "let the worst date in your life begin,"

With her smiling widening, no matter how much she tried to suppress it, she took his hand as she hopped into his cheese smelling car.  

 

* * *

 

"And I appreciate you turning down the relief team," Holt told her, as she stood in his office the next morning after her and Jake's date/stakeout. "I'm not sure they could've made that bust."

Amy frowned for a moment, quickly catching herself before she asked, 'what relief team?'

"Yeah. Right... the relief team," she replied, wondering why Jake would've turned them down without telling her, hadn't their stakeout been the reason he'd lost all his money on his many attempts to embarrass her.

"So, sorry you lost so much money last night," she said to Jake, as she sat back at her desk; she found herself watching him closely, Jake would never voluntarily turn down an opportunity to embarrass her, that was the whole basis of their relationship. "Guess you can add it to your list of bad dates," she added, half jokily.

"Nah, it still goes on the list of good dates," he said, not looking at her, and she found her heart fluttering in a way it hadn't before, at least not in response to Jake. "You know," he said, looking over at her, "because we caught the bad guys."

"That's very mature of you," she said, her eyes still locked on Jake, and a thought suddenly flitted across her mind:  _Is there a problem?_

"Well I am a very mature man," Jake responded, moments before a male stripper, ordered by Jake for Amy, came and attempted to give Amy a lap dance. Jake jumped between the two of them, shielding Amy.

_Nope, not a problem,_ she decided.

Not yet.

 

 

 


	2. Jake

If you asked Jake Peralta to pinpoint the exact moment he fell in love with Amy Santiago he would not be able to tell you.

 

Was it when she solved the first murder case they’d worked on together despite the fact that they had barely any evidence or leads? Whilst at the time he had been absolutely infuriated at her for solving it before he did, he couldn’t help notice how her eyes were beaming and sparkling and the whole of her was glowing with pride. Was it when she called him a butthead on their way to defeat the Vulture? During the stakeout on their first date? When she told him she wasn’t transferring to Major Crimes and her eyes had done that sparkly, beaming thing as he complimented her? When he left to go undercover, and despite not seeing her for six months, he still couldn’t stop thinking about her? When he let her win at Jimmy Jabs? When he’d found out she’d liked him back, and even though he was with Sophia, he couldn’t help thinking what if? When he’d danced with Charles’ great aunt at Darlene and Lynn’s, his eyes on Amy, and her eyes sparkling again, as he realised that he’d never had such a strong connection with anyone. When he kissed her while undercover? Or when she’d kissed him? Or when he finally kissed her for real in the evidence lock up, and it was the most wonderful, exhilarating feeling in the world.

But it wasn’t just any of those moments, it was all of them; at each moment he’d become more and more infatuated with her, until there was no going back, and it wasn’t just those moments, it was the smaller ones too, like the time he’d caught her looking at him all sparkly eyed across their desks, or when she remembered the backstories for his numerous characters, or when they’d been lying on his couch, Amy’s head resting on his chest, watching Parks and Rec a few days into officially dating, and his heart swelled at the domesticity of it all.

It was all of it, every single moment he spent with Amy Santiago, he fell more in love with her.

But the moment he knew that he was completely and utterly in love with her, and that there was no going back even if he wanted to (which he didn’t and would never), was the night of Halloween.

She was standing at the bar at Shaw’s, the crown on her head and a make shift cape tied around her neck. He was still in awe at how she’d beaten him as he'd placed the crown on her head.

“All hail Amy Santiago, the…” he trailed off, looking at her, his chest practically bursting with pride.

“The Queen,” she said quickly, a cheeky smile flitting across her face, and he smiled and nodded, because she deserved nothing less than the title ‘Queen’.

“The Queen of the Nine-NIne!”

The others cheered and clapped, and Amy gave a little bow, beaming and sparkling; the crown only seemed to add a golden glow to her, and for a moment Jake’s breath was caught in his throat because what a dork, what a beautiful, beautiful dork — the Queen of the Nine-Nine, his Queen.

He loved her more than he hated losing.

And there it was, the realisation, as he watched her glow, he was completely and utterly and irreversibly _in love_ with Amy Santiago.

He nudged her lightly with his elbow, “Ames?”

She turned her head to him, and there were her big sparkly eyes again; boy, was he in deep.

“Yeah?”

“I… You’re the awesomest person ever, you know that?”

She smiled, and somehow her glowing managed to intensify, and it was as if the rest of the bar was in darkness and she was the only light in the room. He leant in and kissed her gently, touching his forehead to hers.

“I am pretty awesome,” she whispered, her eyes still shut.

Jake laughed, “Looks like we agree, Santiago,”

Amy reached for his hand and carefully slotted her fingers in-between his, squeezing his hand. “You’re the best, Jake, truly. You know that?”

Jake smiled. “Sorry I yelled at your boobs,”

“My boobs forgive you,” she laughed.

“I’m glad, I would not want to be on bad terms with them,” he joked playfully.

Amy shoved him slightly, “You’re such a dork, you know that, Peralta?”

“I though I was the best,” he teased.

“You can be both!”

“As can you my Queen,” he said to her, “as can you."


	3. Amy

Amy Santiago, however, could tell you the exact moment she fell in love with Jake Peralta.

It wasn't when she'd first met him, and realised that he had the maturity of an 11 year old boy; nor was it her eventual realisation at the fact that somewhere along the exasperation of working with Jake Peralta they'd become friends; it wasn't after their first date, that Jake had won, even when he'd given up the rest of it to go on a stake out with her; it wasn't when he'd told her he liked her before he went undercover, and she couldn't help wonder if she liked him too; it wasn't even when she broke up with Teddy because she liked Jake (as much as she wanted to tell herself it wasn't for that reason, it was); not even when they'd kissed in the evidence lock up; not those first few days that consisted of a funeral and the vulture, and not the next few that were seemed like something out of a blissful dream.

But she felt herself slipping at those moments, slipping further and further, until finally she fell in love. Completely and truly. Like she'd never been before.

She was lying in bed the night of Jake's 'real life Die Hard' as he put it; Jake, exhausted from everything, was lying next to her, deep asleep. She watched him, her eyes roaming his face. She looked at his small sleep-frown, how his eyebrows knit together like he's thinking intently, and at his stupid little chin dimple she loved so much.

She looked at him and wondered how close she'd come to losing him that night.

He'd been threatened, he'd told her, a gun pointed at him.

She gulped and felt tears work their way slowly into her eyes.

She should've checked her phone sooner, if she hadn't been so preoccupied with Holt and Rosa and that dumb swim... they could've gotten there before the Vulture... they could've gotten Jake out sooner.

She'd come so close. Too close.

She reached out and stroked him gently, just wanting to touch his face, and not meaning to wake him up. But he stirred, blinking awake, and the sleep-frown was replaced by the sleepy-frown (slightly different, one's of concentration, the other of confusion and fatigue). 

"I didn't mean to wake you," she whispered.

He sat up, as he processed Amy's eyes, deep and beautiful, and gleaming with tears. "Ames, what's- are you okay?"

Amy pushed herself up. "I'm-" she breathed in deeply, wiping her eyes, "-I'm... okay."

"Are you sure?" he asked with concern, reaching out to hold her cheek.

She leant into his hand and smiled with disbelief. God, after the whole ordeal, _he_ was worried about _her_. 

"You're okay?" she asked after a moment.

He nodded hesitantly. "Yeah,"

"Then I'm okay,"

He closed the gap between them and kiss her gently, briefly. "You should sleep, Ames, it's like 3 am or something,"

She laughed softly, lying back down.

"Good night, Jake,"

His eyes were alright shut. "Night, Ames," he murmured.

She smiled, and shut her own eyes, falling asleep within minutes (she too, was exhausted after all).

And that was it, that was the moment, and she'd remember it forever.

So when she says the words to Jake — the first time she's ever said them first — on that cruise ship a few weeks later, it's not scary or premature, in fact it's been years in the making.

She loves him.

And he loves her too.


	4. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tis the end! enjoy and thank you for indulging in my fluff (feel free to indulge me by commenting!) :))

“Jake,” she whispers, prodding him lightly in the shoulder.

They’re lying in the bed of the suite that Doug Judy gave them; it’s late, but she knows Jake is awake. She can tell from his breathing, when he’s asleep he does this soft snore that Amy finds adorable.

He lets out an indistinguishable moan.

“Jake,” she says slightly louder, more imperatively.

“Ames,” he murmurs, his eyes still shut and his face squished enough to make her smile, “I love you but I’m so sleepy,”

That makes her smile too, at the casualness of it all; the words suit them in a way that they’ve never suited Amy and anyone else.

“I just realised something though,” she whispers, and one of his eyes opens dramatically and she giggles.

“You’ve intrigued me, Santiago,” he says, opening his other eye and propping himself up on his elbows, “go.”

“We finally broke the first rule,” she tells him. 

He looks confused for a moment before it dawns on him, and he smiles broadly, leaning down and kissing her. “I think we broke that rule along time ago,” he says softly.

She smiles at that, kissing him tenderly. “Well what can I say, rules are made to be broken."


End file.
